The 2010 earthquake in Haiti increased two American doctors' efforts to create a humanitarian, non-profit program named Colleagues In Care in an effort to provide education and training to those who were affected by the earthquake. With support from IBM, Colleagues In Care is utilizing SmartCloud to share medical information with this island, just three hours from the United States. From the gray avenues of New York City to the colorful streets of Port-au-Prince, and all around the world, doctors and technologists are collaborating to save lives.

Watch below for the story of two humanitarians and how their partnership with IBM is helping local Haitian doctors and patients.

IBM recently unveiled new capabilities in its Smarter Cities software, delivering cloud-based analytics to help cities gain powerful insights into how to better serve their citizens.

Cities around the globe are confronted with growing populations, aging infrastructure, reduced budgets, and the challenge of doing more with less. The newest IBM Intelligent Operations software portfolio, based on open cloud computing standards, helps transform city operations to become more efficient. Designed in collaboration with city leaders, the software also applies predictive analytics to help cities budget for capital improvements and improve the efficiency of water utilities.

New Project Aims to Make New York’s Lake George the “Smartest Lake” in the World

IBM recently announced the launch of “The Jefferson Project at Lake George,” a three-year, multi-million dollar collaboration with the goal of understanding and managing complex factors—including road salt, storm water runoff and invasive species—threatening one of the world’s most pristine natural ecosystems and an economic cornerstone of the New York tourism industry. The collaboration partners expect that this world-class scientific and technology facility at Lake George will create a new model for predictive preservation and remediation of critical natural systems on Lake George, in New York, and ultimately around the world.

IBM’s Smarter Planet strategy took a major technological step forward recently with the introduction of IBM MessageSight, a new appliance designed to help organizations manage and communicate with the billions of mobile devices and sensors found in systems such as automobiles, traffic management systems, smart buildings and household appliances.

Over the next 15 years, the number of machines and sensors connected to the Internet will explode. According to IMS Research, there will be more than 22 billion web-connected devices by 2020[i].These new devices will generate more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data every day[ii], while every hour enough information is consumed by Internet traffic to fill seven million DVDs.[iii]

Building on the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) technology, IBM MessageSight delivers the performance, value and simplicity that organizations need to accommodate the growing multitude of mobile devices and sensors. This enables large volumes of events to be processed in near real time, allowing organizations to consolidate all of the information in one place and more easily glean insights to make better business decisions. IBM MessageSight is capable of supporting one million concurrent sensors or smart devices and can scale up to thirteen million messages per second.

One of the biggest buzzwords these days is
‘social media’. Everyone talks about how it’s important to consider a social
media strategy and how their business can be present on Facebook, Twitter etc.
If we can use these new platforms to share and have a dialogue with friends and
family, why shouldn’t we use this new technology to collaborate and share in
our corporate life - within our organization, internally and externally?
Social business is not something that you can assign the marketing department
and expect to be implemented in the organization. It is more of a change in the
way you think which can result in more open, communicative corporate
culture.

Being social and collaborating is more than
a company with a Facebook page or Twitter account. It’s about implementing and
cultivating a spirit of collaboration and community throughout its organization,
both internally and externally. And since it is somewhat of a comprehensive
change, the idea of adopting social tools into their organization is often
dismissed. Furthermore, the fear of having no control, less privacy and
security keeps social business out of the business strategy. But as the
employee gets more used to various social platforms and this knowledge and way
of sharing spreads to businesses, leaders have to consider and adjust to the
idea of an open, interactive environment in order for them to stay competitive.

Most of us can all relate to the
overwhelming amount of emails that we receive everyday and how the intranet and
databases can be confusing, chaotic and slow. When you need the latest
information, a social private network allows you to sort and search by key
words and subjects. Furthermore, you can share videos and voice memos to
increase understanding and make processing of the information easier. You can
have FAQ sites and online forums where you’re able to have a debate which can
benefit not only those directly involved, but also serve others from your
organization that might deal with some of the same issues as yourself.

In a world where everything changes at an
incredible pace, the ability to find information swiftly can help your
organization save time and money.

A recent altimeter
report, surveying private social networking decision makers for 250+ sized
organizations, asked how much impact a private social network had on
collaboration between teams and departments. 64.2% of executives told Altimeter
it was moderate to very significant. 65% said private social networking had an
impact on reducing internal emails, while another 60% were able to streamline a
business process. Other tangible business efficiencies as a result of internal
social networking included increased employee retention, faster decision
making, and a reduction in the volume of meetings

However, you can’t just jump right into it.
Companies need to know exactly what they want to get out of it, and then align
their business process with the right tools and platforms in order for it to be
a successful implementation.

IBM Cloud to Deliver New Home Entertainment Services
for Philips Smart TVs

IBM Launches Cloud Platform for the Consumer
Electronics Industry

IBM recently unveiled a new cloud platform
for consumer electronics firms and announced it will power the Philips Smart TV
platform for Internet services, which will deliver greater interactive services
to millions of TV viewers in more than 30 countries in Europe, as well as Brazil and Argentina.

Through their broadband connections, smart
TVs provide consumers with innovative, on-demand access to an unlimited array
of entertainment options throughout the Internet. In addition to standard,
linear TV, they provide two-way interaction and personalized content, enabling
new “intelligent” consumer services.

The announcement at the IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin provides IBM
cloud services on a pay-per-use basis to TP
Vision, an Amsterdam-based joint venture between Philips and TV
manufacturer TPV responsible for the development of Philips Smart TV.

TP Vision needed a cloud computing
environment resilient enough to support unexpected service demands at any given
time when millions of TV units access a variety of services on its
network.

IBM
announces a definitive agreement to acquire Green Hat, a leader in
software quality and testing solutions for the cloud and other
environments. Founded in 1996, Green Hat helps customers improve the
quality of software applications by enabling developers to leverage
cloud computing technologies to conduct testing on a software
application prior to its delivery.

Historically, to run
simulation testing on a software program, a development team must
construct an actual testing lab made up of both hardware and
software. This time consuming and labor intensive process has become
even more compounded with the short development cycle needed to
compete in rapidly expanding markets such as those for smart phones
and tablets. By using Green Hat's solutions, a virtual test
environment can be set up in a matter of minutes versus weeks, and
for a fraction of the cost.

Upon the acquisition close, Green
Hat will join IBM's Rational Software business. When combined with
the IBM Rational Solution for Collaborative Lifecycle Management,
developers and testers can achieve unprecedented levels of
efficiency, effectiveness, and collaboration while delivering quality
software to their business. IBM and Green Hat will help customers
maximize continuous integration of an application, including creating
virtual protocols, message formats, services, customization and
engagement with third-party software.

It's time to mark Sunday, 15 January 2012
in your social calendar and save the date for the premier IBM Collaboration
community worldwide event - Lotusphere 2012. We'll open Lotusphere 2012 with Business Partner Development Day on Sunday, 15 January 2012. Register today.
Call for abstracts will open soon, check back for updates.